Power Play
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PreBuffy] It's always about competition with the two of them... GilesEthan [One shot]


It crept up on him slowly, like an autumn rain – he could see the clouds rolling in, and yet it surprised him all the same when he wound up drenched.

It was always about competition with Ethan, before friendship, before anything else. He remembered the first time Ethan really seemed to respect him, an image that was burned into his memory for one reason or another: Ethan, looking up at him with a bloodied nose and a somewhat wild smile, Rupert looking down at him, fist clenched and a little sore, breathing hard. Still smiling, Ethan said with perfect equanimity, "Well then, Ripper."

With anyone else, it would seem there ought to be more to that, but with Ethan, that was all he needed to say. Rupert watched him for a moment, feeling his blood pulsing with adrenaline, and flexed his hand. He'd won something, however briefly, in a game with Ethan he hadn't known he was playing. He liked that feeling.

Rupert held a hand out to help him up, the adrenaline and anger cooling, and Ethan took it, getting to his feet. The anger faded. The fierce rush of pleasure at having won didn't.

They kept testing and pushing each other's limits from there on, in little, subtle ways no one else would notice. Simple things – who could learn spells the fastest, perform them the best, who could push the other the furthest before he snapped and it ended up, as always, with someone's bloodied nose or a blackened eye. And before long it turned to other things, that felt so much darker and more dangerous than the rest of it.

Rupert's eyes were closed as he intoned the harsh-sounding, accented syllables of the spell, candlelight creating a warm red glow through his eyelids, voice rising steadily as he went on. He heard Ethan move, but it sounded like a mere shift in position, and Rupert didn't open his eyes. Then he felt Ethan's breath on the back of his neck, and he stumbled over the words, starting a bit. Ethan ran his tongue over the shell of his ear, then murmured in a low voice that made Rupert's stomach drop, "Finish the incantation, Ripper."

He almost asked, _While you're doing THAT?, _but then he recognized it as a challenge, same as any other, a test of wills. He swallowed hard, eyes still closed, and continued the incantation through gritted teeth, trying to ignore Ethan's mouth moving down to his neck, biting softly at first, then harder, and oh God, it was so hard not to gasp or squirm or whirl around and grip his wrists and pin him down and...

He managed to finish, opening his eyes as light incandesced before him, and Ethan pulled away, settling back into his position across the circle from Rupert – really just a line, with only the two of them. Rupert ignored the urge to reach up and rub at his neck, just as he ignored the knot of desire twisted in his stomach. Games of power, same as any other. He thought he'd won this round.

The next round was his move.

He waited a week to make it – patience ever was a part of their games – but when he made it, it was with all the fierceness and abruptness that had earned him his name. Ripper. Ethan pushed him just far enough, taunting words he wouldn't even remember later, and Rupert shoved him into the wall. Usually, on a normal day, that would be the end of it – in the unspoken rules of the game they played, Rupert had broken first, so Ethan had won.

Rupert held on to him, though, fingers digging into his shoulders, and kissed him hard, and that was nowhere in the rules.

Ethan kissed back roughly, his hands rising before Rupert gripped his wrists and pinned them to the wall. He pressed his knee up between Ethan's legs, relishing the soft groan that got from him. He could feel Ethan smiling into the kiss, like he'd won some victory, the damnably cocky smirk that always got under Rupert's skin, so he bit his lip, not entirely gently. The smirk disappeared, with a soft noise from Ethan.

Rupert released Ethan's wrists at last, dropped his hands to swiftly unbutton his pants, while Ethan's hands ran up under Rupert's shirt, and none of this was in the rules either. This one they might have to call a draw.


End file.
